Books for April - June 2009

We tried something new this time with our book voting and it worked out VERY well. So here’s how we will do things from now on:

• You get to nominate a book if you’ve been to at least 3 meetings. The same criteria goes for voting.
• If you nominate a book and it is chosen, you cannot nominate one in the next round (but you can in the round after that).
• A week before the voting you should submit the title, summary and reason you want to nominate that book to me. I’ll compile a list and send it to the entire club.
• Everyone will rank the books in order from most preferred to least preferred and email me their list.
• The three books that get the most “top 3” votes will be our choices.
  

So … here are the results of this round of voting, with the three winners first:

The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
9 votes
nominated by Beth

Queen of the Road
9 votes
nominated by Amy

Little Bee
8 votes
nominated by Heather

The Art of Racing in the Rain
7 votes
nominated by Stephanie

Alias Grace
4 votes
nominated by Jennifer

Still Alice
3 votes
nominated by Nancy

If your book was not chosen, feel free to nominate it again next time. The only people not eligible to nominate books in the next round will be Beth, Amy, and Heather (me).

I’ll get a meeting schedule posted sometime next week so stay tuned …

Meeting Recap: The Bean Trees

This month’s book, The Bean Trees, by Barbara Kingsolver, was nominated by Bev. At the meeting Bev explained the she chose the book mostly because she loved The Poisonwood Bible so much. I think we can ALL agree with that sentiment!

We had a small but lovely meeting last night at Cyndi’s house. Cyndi chose a Mexican theme for us and the food was delicious. There were 6 of us in attendance - the smallest group in quite some time - but discussion was not lacking, that's for sure.

Some things we talked about were:

• Creating a family vs. being born into one
• Taylor’s growth from simple independence to more mature relationships
• LuAnn’s drastic – and welcome – changes throughout the novel
• Kingsolver’s amazing grasp of language – the believability of the characters, the way we all felt like we were actually THERE when she described the settings (esp. the desert during the rain)

Two of the girls listened to the audio version and said it was very well done. Their only complaint was that Taylor's voice came across as being older than she actually was.

The six of us in attendance agreed that Kingsolver’s writing was strong but that the story wasn’t as in depth or as gripping as The Poisonwood Bible.

I’m still waiting on more ratings but here is what we have so far:

• 5 x 1
• 6 x 4
• 7 x 1
• 8 x 1

So not a bad book by any means, but I think we all were expecting more after our wonderful experience with The Poisonwood Bible.

At the end of the meeting we voting on our books for the next three months. I'll be posting those later today so be sure to check back.

Meeting Recap: Change of Heart

This past Sunday we met at Beth’s house in Annapolis to discuss Kara’s pick, CHANGE OF HEART, by Jodi Picoult. For the most part, the book was a disappointment. Kara hoped to have a good discussion on the ethics of capital punishment but the way the story progressed there was no discussion to be had on that topic.

As a group we had a LOT of complaints about this book. Here’s a list of some of them:

• too many things going on, too many subplots - one gal called it “a muddle”
• the story has been done before (The Green Mile?!)
• most of the characters were bland and unbelievable (Fr. Michael was the worst culprit – no one believed a priest would act the way he did)
• the comparison of Shay to Christ was not only odd but unbelievable as well
• the writing wasn’t very good
• the opinions in the book were all “politically correct” – no one was allowed to believe strongly in one thing and think that other people were wrong in their beliefs

The only redeeming quality was Maggie and her relationship with her mother. With all the mother/daughter groups in our club, this was a fun topic to discuss … although I think the moms got more out of it than the daughters did!

Our meal theme was a lot of fun though. Beth decided we should each bring something we'd want for our last meal if we were on death row. Some of the items that showed up were antipasto and wine, chocolate strawberry cake, dessert shooters, and peanut butter cups.

We rated the book as follows:

• 8
• 7 x3
• 6.5
• 6
• 5.5
• 4
• 3
• 2 x2
• 0

Quite the range, huh? With 12 voters, that gives us an average of 4.8.

(I also reviewed this on my blog if you want to check it out.)

Our next meeting is at Cyndi's house on March 26th and we'll be discussing Bev's pick, THE BEAN TREES, by Barbara Kingsolver.

Literary-Themed Inn Opens in Maryland!

I just read about this wonderful place, the Inn Boonsboro, that opened this week right here in Maryland. The owner is Nora Roberts, aka JD Robb, author of the "In Death" series.

What makes this place so special? Each room is named and designed after a famous literary couple who found their happy ending! Here's a list of the rooms:

• Marguerite & Percy - from The Scarlet Pimpernel, by Baroness Emmuska Orczy
• Nick & Nora - from The Thin Man, by Dashiell Hammett
• Jane & Rochester - from Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte
• Elizabeth & Darcy - from Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
• Titania and Oberon - from A Midsummer Night's Dream, by William Shakespeare
• Eve & Roarke - from the In Death novels, by JD Robb
• Westley & Buttercup - from The Princess Bride, by William Goldman
• and there is a Penthouse as well

You can learn more about the Inn Boonsboro at the website: www.innboonsboro.com.

Hmm, I wonder if there is any way to get our book club up there sometime ...

A bit of humor ...

Nancy sent me this today, and although I'm sure you've all seen it before, I thought it would be fun to post here. Enjoy!

One morning a husband returns after several hours of fishing and decides to take a nap. Although not familiar with the lake, his wife decides to take the boat out. She motors out a short distance, anchors, and reads her book.

Along comes a Game Warden in his boat. He pulls up alongside the woman and says, "Good morning, Ma'am. What are you doing?"

"Reading a book," she replies (thinking to herself Isn't that obvious?)

"You're in a Restricted Fishing Area," he informs her.

"I'm sorry, officer, but I'm not fishing. I'm reading."

"Yes, but you have all the equipment. For all I know you could start at any moment. I'll have to take you in and write you up."

"For reading a book?" she replies.

'You're in a Restricted Fishing Area," he informs her again.

"I'm sorry, officer, but I'm not fishing. I'm reading'

"Yes, but you have all the equipment. For all I know you could start at any moment. I'll have to take you in and write you up."

"If you do that, I'll have to charge you with sexual assault," says the woman.

"But I haven't even touched you," says the game warden.

"That's true, but you have all the equipment. For all I know you could start at any moment."

"Have a nice day ma'am," and he left.

MORAL: Never argue with a woman who reads. It's likely she can also think .

About Our Current Book

For our upcoming meeting we're reading the book Kara nominated, CHANGE OF HEART by Jodi Picoult. Here an audio clip of the author talking about the book.



So ... what do you think?

Recap: Interpreter of Maladies

Last night we met at Lenore’s house to discuss the book nominated by Melissa, Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies. Ten of us were in attendance.

Wow, was this a powerful book! The nine short stories were described by one member as “slices of life and not the pleasant slices either.” I think it was Jessica who said that these are the things you wouldn’t volunteer to tell someone else about yourself and Jennifer who added that these are the things that heavily influence who you are.

We discussed a bit about Lahiri herself, and how her own feelings of alienation are transformed into more universal feelings through her stories. Although this book is about the Indian and Indian-American experience, we also felt that it was about all immigrant experiences and about all people as well.

We closed our discussion by asking a few questions from the game Table Talk: The Book Club Edition (which was a gift to me from Nancy – thank you!) One question asked each member to sum up the book in one word. Some of the words we chose were: human, powerful, heart-wrenching, and realistic.

Although there were only 10 members at the meeting (plus Melissa’s mom who was in town), 11 people actually read the book. Here’s a recap of the ratings:

• Nancy = 9
• Carrie Ann = 8
• Jessica = 7
• Kelli = 9
• Amy = 8
• Melissa = 9.5
• Beth = 9
• Lenore = 8
• Jennifer = 8
• Heather = 9
• Cyndi = 7

That is an average of 8.3.

A few gals mentioned that it is very difficult for them to give a book either a 9 or a 10, because they feel that it should be the best book ever written to get that rating. So those 8s are really high praise coming from them!

My recap of this meeting will be posted over at ReadingGroupGuides.com later this week. I'll come back and add a link to it once it goes up. And if you'd like to read my review of this book on my blog, click here.